Pregame: Sowing the Seeds of Luv

My wife occasionally plays Civ at Settler level, just to build wonders and culture-win.

I take Formica's post on my playing style as compliments, and even point to his statement as the primary reason why I'm so quick to start the hostilities: "war would have to start on our terms." I figure if I'm 80% ready for war, the other guy probably isn't more than 50% ready psychologically.

This is, in effect, the Bar Fight Theory of conflict. Sucker punch == win. I tend to do better this way... but I still tend to take only second or third place in Prince-level single player, (and thus give up by Industrialism), and I've yet to have a victory in these multiplayer games with this strategy.

I'm usually thinking about some aspect of the game that I "always do." Lately I've been thinking about overlapping squares, and that seems to help in many ways -- easier to defend, easier to micro city production, cheaper to maintain, faster travel times, etc.

So, going into this next game, I will attempt to be less overtly aggressive.

Or not. Maybe this is all a trick to lull my opponents into a false sense of, "this time is different."